Delegates from Territories. OREGON.-S. R. Thurston. MINNESOTA.-Henry S. Sibley. The election of a Speaker is the first business of a new Congress, and the election which decided the political character of the House while parties divided on political principles. Candidates from opposite parties were still put in nomination at this commencement of the Thirtyfirst Congress, but it was soon seen that the slavery question mingled with the election, and gave it its controlling character. Mr. Robert Winthrop, of Massachusetts (whig), and Mr. C. Howell Cobb, of Georgia (democratic), were the respective candidates; and in the vain struggle to give either a majority of the House near three weeks of time was wasted, and above sixty ballotings exhausted. Deeming the struggle useless, resort was had to the plurality rule, and Mr. Cobb receiving 102 votes to the 99 for Mr. Winthrop-about twenty votes being thrown away-he was declared elected, and led to the chair most courteously by his competitor, Mr. Winthrop, and Mr. James McDowell, of Virginia. Mr. Thomas I. Campbell was elected clerk, and upon his death during the session, Richard M. Young, Esq., of Illinois, was elected in his place. CHAPTER CLXXXVII. FIRST AND ONLY ANNUAL MESSAGE OF PRESI DENT TAYLOR. THIS only message of one of the American Presidents, shows that he comprehended the difficulties of his position, and was determined to grapple with them-that he saw where lay the dangers to the harmony and stability of the Union, and was determined to lay these dangers bare to the public view—and, as far as depended on him, to apply the remedies which their cure demanded. The first and the last paragraphs of his message looked to this danger, and while the first showed his confidence in the strength of the Union, the latter admitted the dangers to it, and averred his own determination to stand by it to the full extent of his obligations and powers. It was in these words: "But attachment to the Union of the States should be habitually fostered in every American heart. For more than half a century, during which kingdoms and empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The patriots who formed it have long since descended to the grave; yet still it remains the proudest monument to their memory, and the object of affection and admiration with every one worthy to bear the American name. In my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities, and to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon its preservation must depend our own happiness, and that of countless generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by it, and maintain it in its integrity, to the full extent of the obligations imposed and the power conferred upon me by the constitution." "It (the Union) cannot, then, be saved by eulogies on it, however splendid or numerous. The cry of Union, Union, the glorious Union! can no more prevent disunion than the cry of Health, Health, glorious Health!' on the part of the physician can sare a patient from dying that is lying dangerously ill.” President Taylor surveyed the difficulties before him, and expressed his opinion of the remedies they required. California, New Mexico, and Utah had been left without governments: Texas was asserting a claim to one half of New Mexico-a province settled two hundred years before Texian independence, and to which no Texian invader ever went except to be killed or taken, to the last man. Each of these presented a question to be settled, in which the predominance of the slavery agitation rendered settlement difficult and embarrassing. President Taylor frankly and firmly presented his remedy for each one. California, having the requisite population for a State, and having formed her constitution, and prepared herself for admission into the Union, was favorably recommended for remedy of his own which he ambiguously that purpose to Congress : "No civil government having been provided by Congress for California, the people of that territory, impelled by the necessities of their political condition, recently met in convention, for the purpose of forming a constitution and State government, which the latest advices give me reason to suppose has been accomplished; and it is believed they will shortly apply for the admission of California into the Union as a sovereign State. Should such be the case, and should their constitution be conformable to the requisitions of the constitution of the United States, I recommend their application to the favorable consideration of Congress." shadowed forth-a dual executive-two Presidents: one for the North, one for the South: which was itself disunion if accomplished. In his reference to Washington's warnings against geographical and sectional parties, there was a pointed rebuke to the daily attempts to segregate the South from the North, and to form political parties exclusively on the basis of an opposition of interest between the Southern and the Northern States. As a patriot, he condemned such sectionalism: as a President, he would have counteracted it. After our duty to ourselves the President spoke especially the Spanish possession of Cuba. An of our duty to others to our neighbors—and New Mexico and Utah, without mixing the slavery question with their territorial govern-invasion of that island by adventurers from the ments, were recommended to be left to ripen United States had been attempted, and had into States, and then to settle that question for been suppressed by an energetic proclamation, themselves in their State constitutions-saying: backed by a determination to carry it into "By awaiting their action, all causes of un- effect upon the guilty. The message said: easiness may be avoided, and confidence and kind feeling preserved. With the view of maintaining the harmony and tranquillity so dear to all, we should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of a sectional character which have hitherto produced painful apprehensions in the public mind; and I repeat the solemn warning of the first and most illustrious of my predecessors, against furnishing 'any ground for characterizing parties by geographi cal discriminations!'" This reference to Washington was answered by Calhoun in the same speech read by Mr. Mason, denying that the Union could be saved by invoking his name, and averring that there was "nothing in his history to deter us from seceding from the Union should it fail to fulfil the objects for which it was instituted:" which failure the speech averred-as others had averred for twenty years before: for secession was the off-shoot of nullification, and a favorite mode of dissolving the Union. With respect to Texas and New Mexico, it was the determination of the President that their boundaries should be settled by the political, or judicial authority of the United States, and not by arms. In all these recommendations the message was wise, patriotic, temperate and firm; but it encountered great opposition, and from different quarters, and upon different grounds-from Mr. Clay, who wished a general compromise; from Mr. Calhoun, intent upon extending slavery; and holding the Union to be lost except by a "Having been apprised that a considerable number of adventurers were engaged in fitting out a military expedition, within the United States, against a foreign country, and believing, from the best information I could obtain, that it was destined to invade the island of Cuba, I deemed it due to the friendly relations existing between the United States and Spain; to the treaty between the two nations; to the laws of the United States; and, above all, to the American honor, to exert the lawful authority of this government in suppressing the expedition and preventing the invasion. To this end I issued a proclamation, enjoining it upon the officers of the United States, civil and military, to use all lawful means within their power. A copy of that proclamation is herewith submitted. The expedition has been suppressed. So long as the act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, which owes its existence to the law of nations and to the policy of Washington himself, shall remain on our statute book, I hold it to be the duty of the Executive faithfully to obey its injunctions." This was just conduct, and just language, worthy of an upright magistrate of a Republic, which should set an example of justice and fairness towards its neighbors. The Spanish government had been greatly harassed by expeditions got up against Cuba in the United States, and put to enormous expense in ships and troops to hold herself in a condition to repulse them. Thirty thousand troops, and a strong squadron, were constantly kept on foot to meet this danger. A war establishment was kept up in time of peace in the island of Cuba as no such conglomeration of incongruities to protect the island from threatened invasions. (though christened a compromise) could have Besides the injury done to Spain by these ag- any force:-as being a concession to the spirit of gravations, and the enormous expense of a war disunion-a capitulation to those who threatened establishment to be kept in Cuba, there was secession-a repetition of the error of 1833:danger of injury to ourselves from the number and itself to become the fruitful source of more and constant recurrence of these expeditions, contentions than it proposed to quiet. His which would seem to speak the connivance of plan was to settle each measure by itself, beginthe people, or the negligence of the government. ning with the admission of California, settling Fortunately for the peace of the countries every thing justly and fairly, in the spirit of during the several years that these expeditions conciliation as well as of justice-leaving the were most undertaken, the Spanish government consequences to God and the country—and was long represented at Washington by a having no compromise with the threat of disminister of approved fitness for his situation-union. The majority of the Senate were of Don Luis Calderon de la Barca: a fine specimen Mr. Benton's opinion, which was understood of the old Castilian character-frank, courteous, also to be the plan of the President: but there honorable, patriotic-whose amiable manners are always men of easy or timid temperaments enabled him to mix intimately with American in every public body that delight in temporizasociety, and to see that these expeditions were tions, and dread the effects of any firm and criminally viewed by the government and the straightforward course; and so it was now, but immense majority of the citizens; and whose with great difficulty-Mr. Clay himself only high character enabled him to satisfy his own being elected by the aid of one vote, given to government of that important fact, and to pre-him by Mr. Webster after it was found that he vent from being viewed as the act of the nation, lacked it. The committee were: Mr. Clay, what was only that of lawless adventurers, pur-chairman: Messrs. Cass, Dickinson, Bright, sued and repressed by our own laws. CHAPTER CLXXXVIII. MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF COMPROMISE. EARLY in the session Mr. Clay brought into the Senate a set of resolutions, eight in number, to settle and close up once and for ever, all the points of contestation in the slavery question, and to consolidate the settlement of the whole into one general and lasting compromise. He was placed at the head of a grand committee of thirteen members to whom his resolutions were to be referred, with a view to combine them all into one bill, and make that bill the final settlement of all the questions connected with slavery. Mr. Benton opposed this whole plan of pacification, as mixing up incongruous measures-making one measure dependent upon another-tacking together things which had no connectionas derogatory and perilous to the State of California to have the question of her admission confounded with the general slavery agitation in the United States-as being futile and impotent, Webster, Phelps, Cooper, King, Mason, Downs, Mangum, Bell, and Berrien, members. Mr. Clay's list of measures was referred to them; and as the committee was selected with a view to promote the mover's object, a bill was soon returned embracing the comprehensive plan of compromise which he proposed. The admission of California, territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, slavery in the District of Columbia, a fugitive slave law-all-all were put together in one bill, to be passed or rejected by the same vote! and to be called a system. United they could not be. Their natures were too incongruous to admit of union or mixture. They were simply tied together-called one measure; and required to be voted on as such. They were not even bills drawn up by the committee, but existing bills in the Senate-drawn up by different members-occupying different places on the calendar—and each waiting its turn to be acted on separately. Mr. Clay had made an ample report in favor of his measure, and further enforced it by an elaborate speech: the whole of which Mr. Benton contested, and answered in an ample speech, some extracts from which constitute a future chapter. CHAPTER CLXXXIX. EXTENSION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE LINE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN: MR. DAVIS, OF MIS SISSIPPI, AND MR. CLAY: THE WILMOT PROVISO. In the resolutions of compromise submitted by Mr. Clay there was one declaring the non-existence of slavery in the territory recently acquired from Mexico, and affirming the "inexpediency" of any legislation from Congress on that subject within the said territories. His resolution was in these words: "Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the Republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into or exclusion from any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all of the said territory, not assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery." This proposition, with some half-dozen others, formed the system of compromise with which Mr. Clay expected to pacify the slavery agitation in the United States. Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, did not perceive any thing of a compromise in a measure which gave nothing to the South in the settlement of the question, and required the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific ocean as the least that he would be willing to take. Thus: "But, sir, we are called on to receive this as a measure of compromise! Is a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing, a measure of compromise? I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the senator from Kentucky, I here assert that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of their owners." This was a manly declaration in favor of extending slavery into the new territories, and in the only way in which it could be done that is to say, by act of Congress. Mr. Clay met it by a declaration equally manly, and in conformity to the principles of his whole life, utterly refusing to plant slavery in any place where it did not previously exist. He answered: "I am extremely sorry to hear the senator from Mississippi say that he requires, first, the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, and also that he is not satisfied with that, but requires, if I understood him correctly, a positive provision for the admission of slavery south of that line. And now, sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate and well matured determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and of New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the citizens of those territories choose constitutions establishing slavery, I am for adto establish slavery, and if they come here with mitting them with such provisions in their constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their posterity will have to tions allowing the institution of slavery to exist reproach them, and not us, for forming constituamong them. These are my views, sir, and I choose to express them; and I care not how extensively or universally they are known." These were manly sentiments, courageously expressed, and taking the right ground so much overlooked, or perverted by others. The Missouri compromise line, extending to New Mexico and California, though astronomically the same with that in Louisiana, was politically directly the opposite. One went through a territory all slave, and made one-half free; the other would go through territory all free, and make one-half slave. Mr. Clay saw this difference, and acted upon it, and declared his sentiments honestly and boldly; and none but the ignorant or unjust could reproach him with inconsistency in maintaining the line in the ancient Louisiana, where the whole province came to us with slavery, and refusing it in the new terri- measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this tories where all came to us free. Mr. Seward, of New York, proposed the renewal of the Wilmot proviso: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than by conviction for crime, shall ever be allowed in either of said territories of Utah and New Mexico." opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of each of the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a period when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest question How can the Union be preserved ?" Upon the adoption of which the yeas and that can ever come under your consideration: nays were: "YEAS.-Messrs. Baldwin, Bradbury, Bright, Chase, Clarke, Cooper, Corwin, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dodge of Wisconsin, Douglas, Felch, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Miller, Norris, Seward, Shields, Smith, Upham, Whitcomb, and Walker-23. "NAYS.-Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Bell, Benton, Berrien, Butler, Cass, Clay, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Dickinson, Dodge of Iowa, Downs, Foote, Houston, Hunter, Jones, King, Mangum, Mason, Morton, Pearce, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Spruance, Sturgeon, Turney, Underwood, Webster, and Yulee-33.” CHAPTER CXC. MR. CALHOUN'S LAST SPEECH: DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION PROCLAIMED UNLESS THE CONSTITUTION WAS AMENDED, AND A DUAL EXECUTIVE APPOINTED- - ONE PRESIDENT FROM THE SLAVE AND ONE FROM THE FREE STATES. On the 4th of March Mr. Calhoun brought into the Senate a written speech, elaborately and studiously prepared, and which he was too weak to deliver, or even to read. Upon his request it was allowed to be read by his friend, Mr. James M. Mason of Virginia, and was found to be an amplification and continuation of the Southern manifesto of the preceding year; and, like it, occupied entirely with the subject of the dissolution of the Union, and making out a case to justify it. The opening went directly to the point, and presented the question of Union, or disunion with the formality and solemnity of an actual proposition, as if its decision was the business on which the Senate was convened. It opened thus: "I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective Professing to proceed like a physician who must find out the cause of a disease before he can apply a remedy, the speech went on to discover the reasons which now rendered disunion inevitable, unless an adequate remedy to prevent it should be administered. The first of these causes was the anti-slavery ordinance of 1787, which was adopted before the constitution was formed, and had its origin from the South, and the unanimous support of that section. The second was the Missouri compromise line, which also had its origin in the South, the unanimous support of the Southern senators, the majority of the Southern representatives, the unanimous support of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, of which Mr. Calhoun was a member; and his own approbation of it for about twenty-five years. The long continued agitation of the slave question was another cause of disunion, dating the agitation from the 1835-which was correct; for in year that year he took it up in the Senate, and gave the abolitionists what they wanted, and could not otherwise acquire an antagonist to cope with, an elevated theatre for the strife, and a national auditory to applaud or censure. Before that time he said, and truly, the agitation was insignificant; since then it had become great; and (he might have added), that senators North and South told him that would be the case when he entered upon the business in 1835. Repeal of the slave sojournment laws by New York and Pennsylvania, was referred to, and with reason, except that these repeals did not take place until after his own conduct in the Senate had made the slavery agitation national, and given distinction and importance to the abolitionists. The progressive increase of the two classes of States, rapid in one, slow in the other, was adverted to as leading to disunion by destroying, what he called, the equilibrium of the States-as if that difference of progress was |